Duke’s Jared McCain, center, drives against North Carolina State’s Ben Middlebrooks (34) and Casey Morsell (14) during the second half of an Elite Eight college basketball game in the NCAA Tournament in Dallas, Sunday, March 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

DALLAS — On Friday night, DJ Burns Jr. said he and the North Carolina State Wolfpack wanted to continue to “crash the party.”

After his performance on Sunday, Burns has the Wolfpack partying like it’s 1983.

Burns scored 29 points to lead NC State to a 76-64 win over ACC rival Duke in the Elite Eight in the South Regional final inside the American Airlines Center to send the program to the Final Four for the first time in 41 years. NC State was a 6 seed that year and went on the win the National Championship. This time around, the Wolfpack were an 11 seed.

“First of all, I want to say this, man, God is good,” NC State head coach Kevin Keatts said. “These young men in the locker room from day one have kind of believed in everything that I’ve preached to them and everything that they talked about. At the beginning of the year, we talked about what are your goals, and I think to a man everyone said we want to win the ACC. Check. What’s your other goal? It’s obviously go on and compete for a National Championship, and we’re still alive for that opportunity.

“It means a lot. Our school deserves it. Our players have really worked hard. The fans deserve it. We’ve done a really good job. When I say we, I always say we. I mean, these young men in the locker room through all the adversity that we have we went through, up and downs of winning games and losing games. They never lost their faith and stayed together. It means a lot. It really does. By the way, congratulations to our women’s team too for making the Final Four. That’s really special.”

NC State is the first school to send its men’s and women’s teams to the Final Four in the same year since 2017 when South Carolina accomplished the feat. Connecticut was the last school to win both titles in the same year when it did so in 2014.

Ten years later, NC State has a chance to do the same.

“I’ll just say, yeah, it’s definitely big for our program,” DJ Horne said. “Seeing the girls have success definitely motivates us. I would say we worry about our team right now and just trying to make the best of what we got going right now and taking each game at a time.”

NC State was nowhere near the NCAA Tournament conversation as an at-large team. The Wolfpack needed a miracle 3-pointer by Michael O’Connell in the ACC Tournament semifinals against Virginia to keep their season alive. And that just sent the game to overtime.

“I think just throughout this journey everyone has made huge plays,” O’Connell said. “Whether in the moment it might not seem big, whether it’s just a deflection or steal, but it changes the trajectory of our run or the game. One play I always go back to (Horne’s) block came off the backboard, I thought that was huge. There are plays consistently plays being made by everyone that might not be covered or might not be in the stat sheet or might not be all over social media, but everyone has been making huge plays down this run, and that’s why I think we’re getting these wins, and it’s been big for us. Obviously, (Burns) is playing unbelievable. Both these dudes (Burns and Horne) are. Mo (Diarra) has been killing it. Casey (Morsell) is. Everyone has been playing and has had such a big impact.

“When you have a lot of guys coming on the court and contributing right away, you can’t really pick the special moment when — I mean, they’re all special in their own way.”

NC State still had to close that game out, 73-65, and then defeated North Carolina, 84-76, to win the ACC Tournament and earn the conference’s automatic bid as the No. 10 seed in the league.

In the NCAA Tournament, NC State defeated Texas Tech (80-67), Oakland (79-73 in overtime), Marquette (67-58) and then Duke on Sunday.

“We have broken the postseason up into different segments,” Keatts said. “When we left to go to D.C., we said we wanted to win D.C. We won D.C. Then we went to Pitt. We say we want to win Pitt. Now obviously in Texas, we won Texas. It gets to a point when you are winning games and like the way we are where you expect to win, and I think our guys now are expecting to win. It’s beautiful to watch.”

Sunday was the third meeting between Duke and NC State — all since March 4. The Wolfpack fell to the Blue Devils 79-64 in the next to last game of the regular season at home. The Wolfpack got revenge with a 74-69 victory over the Blue Devils in the ACC Tournament semifinals.

On Sunday, Duke led 27-21 at halftime as NC State was 9 of 34 from the field (26.5 percent) in the first 20 minutes.

It was all Wolfpack in the second half. NC State shot 19 of 26 from the field (73.1 percent), outscoring Duke 55-37 in the final 20 minutes.

A Horne floater with 11:48 left in the game put NC State up 40-38, which was the Wolfpack’s first lead since 8-7 with 13:25 left in the first half. That was part of a 17-4 run for NC State that gave the Wolfpack a 53-42 lead with 6:55 to go.

Duke star Kyle Filipowski fouled out with 4:52 remaining and NC State leading 56-44, and the Blue Devils (27-9) never recovered.

“Our defense has been tremendous down the stretch,” Keatts said. “It’s been so great. At the halftime, we talked about that it was 27-21. The difference in the game, neither team was scoring. They had taken nine free throws. We had taken three. We made two. They made nine.

“I talked about, hey, if you can come out and duplicate your defense in the second half, we will find a way to score, and we were great in the second half too. It’s a miracle run, but we’re not surprised. We don’t come into this tournament saying, hey, let’s just try to be here. We came here to win it, and we did. Now we have to move on to our next stage.”

That next stage is the Final Four in Glendale, Arizona, where NC State (26-14) will take on No. 1 seed Purdue. It will be NC State’s fourth Final Four, also going in 1950 and 1974, along with 1983, and winning in 1974 and 1983.

NC State is the sixth No. 11 seed to reach the Final Four — the lowest seed to make the Final Four — joining 1986 LSU, 2006 George Mason, 2011 VCU, 2018 Loyola Chicago and 2021 UCLA. No No. 11 seed has ever reached the National Championship game.

After the game, during the trophy presentation, NC State’s band and fans chanted, “Why not us?”

Why not NC State? Indeed.